2 In addition to using normal file images for the emulated storage
3 devices, QEMU can also use networked resources such as iSCSI devices.
4 These are specified using a special URL syntax.
7 iSCSI support allows QEMU to access iSCSI resources directly and use
8 as images for the guest storage. Both disk and cdrom images are
11 Syntax for specifying iSCSI LUNs is
12 "iscsi://<target-ip>[:<port>]/<target-iqn>/<lun>"
14 By default qemu will use the iSCSI initiator-name
15 'iqn.2008-11.org.linux-kvm[:<name>]' but this can also be set from
16 the command line or a configuration file.
18 Since version QEMU 2.4 it is possible to specify a iSCSI request
19 timeout to detect stalled requests and force a reestablishment of the
20 session. The timeout is specified in seconds. The default is 0 which
21 means no timeout. Libiscsi 1.15.0 or greater is required for this
24 Example (without authentication):
28 |qemu_system| -iscsi initiator-name=iqn.2001-04.com.example:my-initiator \\
29 -cdrom iscsi://192.0.2.1/iqn.2001-04.com.example/2 \\
30 -drive file=iscsi://192.0.2.1/iqn.2001-04.com.example/1
32 Example (CHAP username/password via URL):
36 |qemu_system| -drive file=iscsi://user%password@192.0.2.1/iqn.2001-04.com.example/1
38 Example (CHAP username/password via environment variables):
42 LIBISCSI_CHAP_USERNAME="user" \\
43 LIBISCSI_CHAP_PASSWORD="password" \\
44 |qemu_system| -drive file=iscsi://192.0.2.1/iqn.2001-04.com.example/1
47 QEMU supports NBD (Network Block Devices) both using TCP protocol as
48 well as Unix Domain Sockets. With TCP, the default port is 10809.
50 Syntax for specifying a NBD device using TCP, in preferred URI form:
51 "nbd://<server-ip>[:<port>]/[<export>]"
53 Syntax for specifying a NBD device using Unix Domain Sockets;
54 remember that '?' is a shell glob character and may need quoting:
55 "nbd+unix:///[<export>]?socket=<domain-socket>"
57 Older syntax that is also recognized:
58 "nbd:<server-ip>:<port>[:exportname=<export>]"
60 Syntax for specifying a NBD device using Unix Domain Sockets
61 "nbd:unix:<domain-socket>[:exportname=<export>]"
67 |qemu_system| --drive file=nbd:192.0.2.1:30000
69 Example for Unix Domain Sockets
73 |qemu_system| --drive file=nbd:unix:/tmp/nbd-socket
76 QEMU supports SSH (Secure Shell) access to remote disks.
82 |qemu_system| -drive file=ssh://user@host/path/to/disk.img
83 |qemu_system| -drive file.driver=ssh,file.user=user,file.host=host,file.port=22,file.path=/path/to/disk.img
85 Currently authentication must be done using ssh-agent. Other
86 authentication methods may be supported in future.
89 GlusterFS is a user space distributed file system. QEMU supports the
90 use of GlusterFS volumes for hosting VM disk images using TCP, Unix
91 Domain Sockets and RDMA transport protocols.
93 Syntax for specifying a VM disk image on GlusterFS volume is
98 gluster[+type]://[host[:port]]/volume/path[?socket=...][,debug=N][,logfile=...]
101 'json:{"driver":"qcow2","file":{"driver":"gluster","volume":"testvol","path":"a.img","debug":N,"logfile":"...",
102 "server":[{"type":"tcp","host":"...","port":"..."},
103 {"type":"unix","socket":"..."}]}}'
110 |qemu_system| --drive file=gluster://192.0.2.1/testvol/a.img,
111 file.debug=9,file.logfile=/var/log/qemu-gluster.log
114 |qemu_system| 'json:{"driver":"qcow2",
115 "file":{"driver":"gluster",
116 "volume":"testvol","path":"a.img",
117 "debug":9,"logfile":"/var/log/qemu-gluster.log",
118 "server":[{"type":"tcp","host":"1.2.3.4","port":24007},
119 {"type":"unix","socket":"/var/run/glusterd.socket"}]}}'
120 |qemu_system| -drive driver=qcow2,file.driver=gluster,file.volume=testvol,file.path=/path/a.img,
121 file.debug=9,file.logfile=/var/log/qemu-gluster.log,
122 file.server.0.type=tcp,file.server.0.host=1.2.3.4,file.server.0.port=24007,
123 file.server.1.type=unix,file.server.1.socket=/var/run/glusterd.socket
125 See also http://www.gluster.org.
127 ``HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/FTPS``
128 QEMU supports read-only access to files accessed over http(s) and
131 Syntax using a single filename:
135 <protocol>://[<username>[:<password>]@]<host>/<path>
140 'http', 'https', 'ftp', or 'ftps'.
143 Optional username for authentication to the remote server.
146 Optional password for authentication to the remote server.
149 Address of the remote server.
152 Path on the remote server, including any query string.
154 The following options are also supported:
157 The full URL when passing options to the driver explicitly.
160 The amount of data to read ahead with each range request to the
161 remote server. This value may optionally have the suffix 'T', 'G',
162 'M', 'K', 'k' or 'b'. If it does not have a suffix, it will be
163 assumed to be in bytes. The value must be a multiple of 512 bytes.
167 Whether to verify the remote server's certificate when connecting
168 over SSL. It can have the value 'on' or 'off'. It defaults to
172 Send this cookie (it can also be a list of cookies separated by
173 ';') with each outgoing request. Only supported when using
174 protocols such as HTTP which support cookies, otherwise ignored.
177 Set the timeout in seconds of the CURL connection. This timeout is
178 the time that CURL waits for a response from the remote server to
179 get the size of the image to be downloaded. If not set, the
180 default timeout of 5 seconds is used.
182 Note that when passing options to qemu explicitly, ``driver`` is the
185 Example: boot from a remote Fedora 20 live ISO image
189 |qemu_system_x86| --drive media=cdrom,file=https://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/20/Live/x86_64/Fedora-Live-Desktop-x86_64-20-1.iso,readonly
191 |qemu_system_x86| --drive media=cdrom,file.driver=http,file.url=http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20/Live/x86_64/Fedora-Live-Desktop-x86_64-20-1.iso,readonly
193 Example: boot from a remote Fedora 20 cloud image using a local
194 overlay for writes, copy-on-read, and a readahead of 64k
198 qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o backing_file='json:{"file.driver":"http",, "file.url":"http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/20/Images/x86_64/Fedora-x86_64-20-20131211.1-sda.qcow2",, "file.readahead":"64k"}' /tmp/Fedora-x86_64-20-20131211.1-sda.qcow2
200 |qemu_system_x86| -drive file=/tmp/Fedora-x86_64-20-20131211.1-sda.qcow2,copy-on-read=on
202 Example: boot from an image stored on a VMware vSphere server with a
203 self-signed certificate using a local overlay for writes, a readahead
204 of 64k and a timeout of 10 seconds.
208 qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o backing_file='json:{"file.driver":"https",, "file.url":"https://user:password@vsphere.example.com/folder/test/test-flat.vmdk?dcPath=Datacenter&dsName=datastore1",, "file.sslverify":"off",, "file.readahead":"64k",, "file.timeout":10}' /tmp/test.qcow2
210 |qemu_system_x86| -drive file=/tmp/test.qcow2